Letʼs be honest: this yearʼs EBACE started with a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it. No static display. No OEMs. A wave of skepticism. A lot of people were wondering whether it was still worth the trip to Geneva this year.

And yet… it worked. It more than worked.

Not because everything was shiny or flashy, but because what we had was real. Real conversations. Real connections. Real engagement.

From our side, we didnʼt expect miracles, but what we did try to do was bring the spotlight back onto what really matters: people, collaboration, and yes… SAFETY.

But not safety in the “tick this box and read this procedureˮ way. Safety in the letʼs talk about whatʼs hard, what weʼve learned, where we messed up, whatʼs keeping us up at night kind of way.

We ran four panel sessions this year, and they were anything but boring. We asked big, uncomfortable, honest questions. Like:

• Can Safety and Sales actually work together, or are they just faking it for the cameras?
• Why is Safety Promotion the most forgotten pillar of SMS?
• How do you keep your crew safe when your GPS starts acting possessed?
• What happens when hackers care more about your systems than your compliance manual does?

And what came out of those panels was simple and powerful:

There is no competition when it comes to Safety.

We either win together, or we lose separately.

That message hit home, and it sparked a wave of side conversations,

messages, and ideas. A lot of people came to talk to us afterwards and said

things like: “I didnʼt think EBACE was the place for these discussions… but Iʼm glad it happened.ˮ

And so now weʼre going to build on that momentum. Weʼre already working on:

• The next edition of BASIC, our very own safety conference — and no, it wonʼt be a copy/paste of last yearʼs. Weʼve got Big ones.
• A proper Safety Hub on the new EBAA website, where members can finally upload, download, share, search, comment… all in one
• A more regular exchange between members, whether through webinars, small working groups, or informal online sessions, because some of the best ideas donʼt need They need space to be spoken out loud.

All of this is rooted in one truth we saw again and again in Geneva: Safety isnʼt a compliance exercise. Itʼs a human one.

Itʼs about building trust. About listening. About recognising that no matter how good our tech, our SOPs or our SMS might be, itʼs people who keep this industry safe.

So… thank you to everyone who came to the panels, shared thoughts, challenged assumptions, or just nodded silently from the back row.

Weʼre taking it all in.

And now we keep going. Together.